This invention relates to a unit for use in sets such as pairs in lieu of a load-bearing support for a rigid top load with one or more load-bearing platforms or drawers therebelow that can be pulled out and pushed in.
There appears to be nothing quite like it in the furniture art, and especially in the abundant art of stowaway keyboard drawers, frames or tables for computer or cathode ray tube screen devices for which this instant invention is expected to have much application. There are, of course, many desk-like and table-like articles and possibly even frames for holding a rigid load (like a CRT screen device) wherein the top and/or bottom connects two sides fixedly and, underneath the top, is a slide-out drawer, a platform, or a pair of integral slideways to support a lower load such as a keyboard and allow it to be drawn out and pushed in.
Dresser and bureau drawers and telephone list cards slidable from under hotel and motel telephones are perhaps even more familiar articles of at least analogous if not exactly like operation. However, the elements of all such furniture are in some way interconnected into one structure rather than constituting a set of laterally movable, independent, cooperating structures that utilize the rigid top load itself to join them into a useful and versatile support system.
Perhaps the nearest prior art is: a pair of driveup automobile supports used by mechanics to raise two wheels of a car for working thereunder; or the present inventor's printer stand units represented by U.S. Pat. No. Des. 286,715. However, these devices have no element that is adapted to permit the sliding of some load in and out below the automobile or below the printer.
Clearly, the present invention can be used for a rigid top load, e.g. a boxy object such as a CRT device etc. of various length with at least one movable load below it for convenient use and practical space-conserving storage. If a rigid deck or drawer is placed between a pair of the sliding platform elements on one stage, the lower load or loads do not have to be rigid.
Furthermore, a pair of units of the present invention can be toed-in or toed-out a bit to restrict or impede the glide-out movement of the movable load. Other advantages over prior related devices include portability, facilitated and compact storage, and a special economy by dint of requiring no built-in integral joining element on the top and/or the bottom of an interacting pair of the units i.e. a joining element such as a table top, a table base, and/or a frame for or in lieu of either a top or a base.